How to Save a Life (25 page)

We sit at a table near the big front window.

“I like people-watching,” Jill says.

“Me too.”

A light snow is falling, but it isn’t too cold. You can begin to imagine that spring will be here soon. The snow is pretty, the way the small flakes float down and seem to disappear moments before they would land. There’s music playing, a kind of music I’ve never heard that’s not too jazzy or too rock. It’s quiet; it feels good.

“This is a nice neighborhood,” I say. We’re in a part of town I haven’t seen before. I guess most of Denver is made of parts I haven’t seen before. I wonder what else is in this city that I could discover. Could I fit in here, be a part of it? If I came to a place like this without Jill, I wonder if I could feel like I belonged.

“It’s all right. A lot of overeducated white people and hipster coffee shops.”

“Like where you live.”

“No, where we live it’s more—okay, yeah. There are more wire-rim glasses per square acre here, though.”

She seems nervous. I worry she regrets bringing me out. What are we supposed to talk about?

“Did it hurt?” I ask. “The eyebrow ring?”

“A little. That stuff always hurts.”

“Why do you do it, then?”

“Because…” She touches the ring with her index finger, resting her hand against the side of her face, and turns her head to look out the window. The way the streetlight hits her face you can see how pretty she is, and how pretty she’d be without the hair dye and dark eyeliner. She turns back. “You know what? I’m going to get a tattoo. That will
really
hurt.”

“My mother always said only whores and soldiers have tattoos.”

Jill jerks her head back and coughs out a laugh. “Thanks.”

“I’m only saying what my mother says. I don’t think that.”

“What is she, like, eighty?”

“No. She has strong opinions.”

Jill takes a big forkful of cake. “With opinions like that, I don’t think I’d listen to anything that comes out of your mother’s mouth.”

The baby kicks, and kicks hard, like she’s angry. So hard I bend over and touch my stomach and gasp. Jill swallows her cake and asks, “Are you okay?”

“I think so. I—” The baby kicks again.

Jill gets up and comes around to my side of the table. “Seriously, are you sure? Because if you’re anywhere near going into labor, let’s call my mom right now.”

“No, she’s only kicking. Here, feel.” I take Jill’s hand. We’ve never touched before. Her skin is cool and dry and rough around the cuticles. I put her hand on my stomach, firm.

“Oh my God,” Jill says. Her face has that real expression again. “Is that her foot?”

“Maybe. Or her elbow or knee.”

Jill laughs and looks up at me, eyes sparkly. “She’s, like, doing a whole routine in there.”

“Yeah. This is her active time of day. Usually you’re at work.”

“That’s… wow.” She stays crouched down by me, feeling everything that’s happening inside me.

The café door opens, letting in a gust of cold air. A man walks in, tall and young, in a ski parka and purple knit cap. His skin is almost the color of Christopher’s but a tiny bit more brown. I notice him before Jill does, because she’s still putting her hands all over my belly. He looks at us, at Jill, really, and his lips spread into a smile and his eyes go soft.

“Jill,” he says.

“Hey,” Jill stands up. “I know you.”

“Yes, you do.”

“This is Mandy,” she says, as if I’m somebody. “Mandy, this is… oh, crap, I’m totally blanking on your name.”

“Clark,” he says to Jill. “It’s been a while.” He reaches his long arm down and across the table, offering his hand to me. “Mandy, nice to meet you.”

“Your hand is cold,” I say, shaking it.

“Well, it is snowing.”

We all laugh.

“Go get coffee and sit with us.” Jill pulls an extra chair to our table, and Clark goes to the counter to order. He’s the opposite of Dylan—tall, clean-cut, grown-up.

“Did you date him?” I ask Jill.

“What?” She glances over her shoulder at Clark and lowers her voice. “What makes you say that?”

“The way he looked at you when he came in.”

She prods the cake with her fork, eyes down. “I think I would have remembered his name if we went out, Mandy. I’m not that much of a tart, even if I do want a tattoo.”

Clark takes long steps to us and sits down. He pulls off his cap and runs his hand through his neat black hair. Naturally black, not dyed, like Dylan’s. “So,” he says to me, “having a baby, huh?”

“Astute observation there, Clark,” Jill says, emphasizing his name in a funny way.

“Yes. In almost exactly four weeks. Jill’s mom is adopting it.”

Jill looks at me. “Her. Not it. Do you always go around telling strangers about the plan?”

“Her. It’s not a secret,” I say to Clark. “I’m not embarrassed. I know I’m making the right choice.”

“Really?” Jill asks. “You never have a moment of doubt?”

Yes
, I think. Of course. The closer it gets, the more moments of doubt I have. Those are only emotions, though, not reality. My mother made decisions based on emotions. Fear, usually. Of being alone or not having a good place to live or that this will be the last man who wants her. She didn’t think things through and look down the road and see how what she felt was right today might not be what she thought it was, all the things that could go wrong.

“No,” I say. “Have you met Jill’s mother?” I ask Clark.

He shakes his head. “Not yet.”

“When you do, you’ll understand how I know what I know.”

Clark looks at Jill. “That’s a nice compliment for your mom.”

“Yeah,” Jill says. “It is.”

We all talk and people-watch. What I notice is how different Jill is with Clark here. She’s not so scary. She doesn’t seem so much like she’s mad at someone. Like she hates life. And Clark asks me questions about me and the baby and my plans for the future. Making real conversation. I answer without giving too much information. I enjoy this, the same way I enjoyed talking to Dylan. Except Clark is a little different. And anyone can see he likes Jill. He keeps looking at her for reactions, and asking her if she wants more coffee, and sitting closer to her than he needs to. It makes me think of how Christopher looked at me, and how maybe someday, when I’m not so pregnant and I figure out who I’ll be, someone could look at me like that again.

It’s nice to end the day with a sense of possibility instead of sadness.

Jill

Saturday morning breakfast at our favorite diner is the first chance in days that Dylan and I have had to really talk, and you’d think I’d have a lot to say, that I’d want to tell him about last night. Okay, not the part about how I felt when Ravi walked in the door at almost the same second I felt the baby kick, but the rest of it. How I actually had a good time with Mandy.

Dylan is barely alive, slumped in the booth and holding his cup of coffee level with his nose, lowering it every few seconds to take a sip.

“You look like crap,” I say, finally.

“Thanks.”

“How late did you stay up?”

“Um… all night?”

“I guess band practice takes a long time when none of you know how to play or sing or write.” I should have known that starting the conversation this way would not set a good tone. The waitress sets down my Greek scramble. “I didn’t know you were in a band,” she says to Dylan. She’s our regular, Babette, who isn’t all that young but pierced and tatted head to toe, and a local music scenester. “What are you guys called? Where do you play? Are you in it, too?” she asks me.

“No,” I answer, laughing a little. More at the ridiculousness of the idea that she would have heard of them than the idea of me being in the band.

“The Potato Rebellion,” Dylan says.

Babette laughs. “Love it.”

“What happened to the Postulates or whatever?”

“New direction.”

“Right,” I say, spreading jam on my sourdough toast. After Babette moves on, I spear some home fries with my fork and wave them in front of Dylan’s face. “Rebel against this, sucka.”

He doesn’t react. “And what did
you
do last night?”

“I took Mandy out for coffee. Showed her the time of her life.”

Dylan’s eyes narrow. “Oh, did you now. Funny, because last time we talked, I seem to remember that you hated Mandy and thought she was out to ruin your mom’s life.”

“I never said I hated her.” I don’t think. “Anyway, maybe I changed my mind. Maybe I’m giving her a chance.”

“You changed your mind. I see.”

“I felt the baby. I—” He stares; I eat another bite of potatoes.
My friend Ravi was there. And I felt life. Not just in Mandy but in me
. “We had fun, that’s all.”

He sits up straighter. “I’m sure this newfound interest in Mandy has absolutely nothing to do with what you were telling me the other day about getting that guy at work to help you smoke her out. I’m sure you’re not, like, luring her into some evil trap you’re setting just to prove you’re right.”

That’s the Jill he believes in. The Jill he’s been putting up with. The Jill I seem to instantly become again now. And, I mean, he’s right. That
is
why I took Mandy out. But when I got home, I didn’t even care anymore about any of that. I went to sleep thinking my dad would probably love Mandy as much as Mom does. Dylan takes my silence for guilt, which is only half right.

“She’s a nice girl, Jill. You know? Maybe give her a break.”

I shake hot sauce onto my eggs.

“Do you even know anything about her life? And what she’s been through?” He’s sincerely scolding me, big-time, as if he and Mandy are best friends. “Her mom is this world-class bitch.”

I stop mid-chew. “What do you know about it?”

“I talked to Mandy when I went to your house to pick up my history book. It came up. I told you.”

“No, you didn’t.” Did he?

“I did! I totally did!” He puts his fork down. “You don’t listen to me. Seriously, Jill, not to make a thing out of it, but I feel like you haven’t listened to me since…”

Our eyes meet.

“I’m just saying,” he continues, “that for example you could think about me once in a while. In addition to thinking about yourself.”

In classic Jill style, I turn on him in my hurt. “Is this about the band? I’m sorry, but the whole time I’ve known you, you have not expressed a single iota of interest in being in a band, so it’s hard to take seriously.”

“You don’t have to take it seriously. I don’t take it seriously. It’s for fun. It’s something fun and new to do to get out of the rut.”

“The rut? Thanks.”

“The Rut, capital
R
. Not the rut of
you
, or of you and me. The Rut of life. We’re all in it from, like, the day we’re born. It’s good to mix it up a little.”

I push my plate away. “Very philosophical of you.”

He scrunches up his napkin and tosses it onto the table. For a couple of seconds, I’m pretty sure he’s going to get up and walk out, and I feel ready. I almost want it, can almost picture him gone, and with him the Jill I’m sick of, and then I could start over. He doesn’t move, though, which shouldn’t surprise me. Dramatic exits are not Dylan. He leans back against the booth and pinches the bridge of his nose, squinting. “I missed you, Jill. While you’ve been going through your thing. Like crazy I’ve missed you, and when you hid in my car that day, I was so freaking happy, even though I pretended not to be. But now I remember we didn’t always get along that great.”

So he’s noticed.

“That’s part of the Jill-Dylan charm?” I say weakly.

Dylan nods, a lie of a nod, his eyes fixed on his coffee cup.

The barista at Dazbog says hi when I walk in, and points to Ravi at a table by the window. “He’s over there.”

We’re officially regulars. It’s our place. And it’s the first time I’ve had that other than with Dylan.

“
Clark
?” I ask, joining him. “Really? Why is every boy in the world obsessed with Superman?” We don’t have much time before my shift. There’s a coffee shop closer to work, of course, and one
at
work, but we have this unspoken understanding that it’s best not to have these meetings too close to Margins. Too close to Annalee. Annalee is the most unspoken part of all.